Complete username purge?

Oriel

Folks,
There must be hundreds of users registered here where either:

• They have no posts at all.
  
• They have had no activity for over a stupid amount of time. Take $onic for example, joined in 2002 and has had three posts. Searching has been disabled, but I'm guessing the 3 posts are all from 2002.

Can we not just delete the other junk usernames? I'm sure there are quite a lot there that a new registrant might want to use*.

*Plus they annoy me

S.

WizZard

This has been discussed before, although with search down I can't look for it.
I *think* the admins decided not to delete old, unused accounts.

<edit>Aha, found it! </edit>

D

You just want the name $onic, don't you DON'T YOU!!

RuggieBear

When i first signed up to ask about RAM overclocking, i made 3 posts and then didn't make another for at least 6months (could've been longer, can't remember). Would that qualify as a dormant account that should be deleted?

Or look at ropedrink, he hadn't posted for at least 2 years until he popped back very recently

Sleepy

This is one of those suggestions that gets made every 6 months and gets shot down each time. It's not as if those user accounts make any significant difference to the server loads so I can't imagine that deleting them would make a difference to performance.

rsynnott

Sleepy wrote:

It's not as if those user accounts make any significant difference to the server loads

Certainly, they make less difference than this silly thread does.

garthv

Aye, I signed up a few years ago and Ive only started to post heavily in the last year or so...
What difference does it make anyway?

DeVore

Is it that time again? Wow, the months just fly by so fast


If $onic has 3 posts and we are going to delete his username, who will the posts be attributed to? Should we delete the posts too? Now what about the replies to those posts, or perhaps his posts started a thread or two, now what do we do with that thread? Pull the thread, watch things unravel...

DeV.

combat_sombo

bagsy devore if you do a purge.

rsynnott

WizZard wrote:

<edit>Aha, found it! </edit>

Oh, dear. *Giggles unkindly at Hobart*

BuffyBot

If $onic has 3 posts and we are going to delete his username, who will the posts be attributed to?

I can see the logic to both sides on this one. A lot of sites do purges of usernames to free up them for new users and old alike. To be honest, boards probably could do with letting some of them go. DeV makes a good point about what to replace them with. Why not substitute any purged names with another, random combination..say a poster with the name JoeBloggs hasn't posted in x time (whatever criteria is selected), couldn't the name be purged and replaced by JoeBloggs12343245, thus freeing up JoeBloggs for someone else? Just a thought.

steveland?

How about all the users with 0 posts that regged over 2 years ago?

Can't see the harm in that...

Gordon

Won't someone think of the newbies?

regi

That'd be a no.